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Democrats and liberals have become defensive and cranky over Newt Gingrich’s charge “that more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history.” But why are they so offended? Under President Obama more people are on Medicaid, another welfare program, than under any other president. And an estimated 16 million more will be added beginning in 2014—and Democrats boast about that.

The food stamp program, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), has grown from 26.3 million people in 2007 to 44.7 million last year, an increase of nearly 70 percent.

The enrollment explosion, as Democrats point out, began with the start of the recession under President George W. Bush—though they conveniently neglect to add that they were running Congress. But the growth has accelerated under Obama, who expanded the program.

SNAP is a means-tested welfare program, but so is Medicaid—and a much bigger program at that. According to a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, “State Medicaid spending is projected to grow by an average of 29 percent in the budget year that began July 1, the biggest increase in the history of the federal-state health insurance program for the poor and disabled.”

Medicaid, which now covers 60 million people, has become the largest budget item for most states—about 25 percent. Enrollment growth only grew by 3 percent in 2008, but shot up by 7.8 percent in 2009. The growth rate has gradually declined to 5.5 percent in 2011, but will explode beginning 2014 because of ObamaCare.

But unlike the food stamp program, where Democrats are sniffing that Obama isn’t the cause of the program’s growth, they have actively worked to place and keep more Americans in the worst health insurance program in the country—and take credit for it. Indeed, Obama has a campaign banner ad that proclaims, “Because of Barack Obama 32 million new people will have healthcare.”

As Kaiser reports, “Both the 2009 economic stimulus law, which provided an additional $87 billion in federal funding for Medicaid, and the 2010 federal health overhaul prohibited states from tightening eligibility requirements. So states have had to look elsewhere [like education] for cuts to make up for the loss of the extra federal funds.”

The effort to force state Medicaid expansion is one of the reasons why 26 states are challenging ObamaCare, which the U.S. Supreme Court will hear in March. That expansion is the source of 16 million of the estimated 32 million newly insured Americans.

Gingrich critics have also complained that there is a hint of racism behind his comment. Ronald Reagan gave us the “welfare queen,” they contend, and Gingrich is giving us the “food stamp king.” They claim such comments conjure up false stereotypes of low-income or unemployed African-Americans milking the welfare rolls.

The Gingrich critics point out accurately that there are more whites on the food stamp rolls than blacks, although the black share is larger than their share of the general population. But that’s also true of Medicaid. And yet Democrats trip all over themselves trying to take credit for any Medicaid expansion.